Life in the Idaho Mountains...
On Tuesday we closed on our house and we are proud home owners! Jim was able to sneak a peek at the house before closing and snapped some pictures for me:) Here is our home and it feels so good to say that!! We are picking the truck up today, Jim is graduating Friday (yeah Jim!!), loading Saturday, moving out of Marquette Sunday, and into our home in Kalamazoo Monday....whew! We are excited for both of our families to join us this weekend for Jim's graduation, it should be a great time! 
We finally had some nice weather in Marquette (not for long though, it is suppose to snow again in the next couple of days), so the other day I took Ethan to the park in the lower harbor. It is this huge play area for children with everything that you can think of to play on. Ethan had a blast and especially loved the slide! I am excited to say that there is a park a quarter mile down the road from our new house in Kalamazoo, Ethan will be in heaven!
"Look at this silly fish mom."
Taking a rest after playing hard.
"I see you!"
"OMG, this park is huge!"
"I LOVE PARKS!"
"Lets go down the slide again!"
Sweet Ethan
"My favorite thing to do at the park.....eat wood chips of course!"
We are getting the packing underway for the big move in two weeks and are so excited about our new home in Kalamazoo, but are enjoying the time that we have left in Marquette. Finally yesterday was a nice day and Ethan was able to get out and run around and he LOVED it! He was eating dirt dipped animal crackers and enjoyed every bit of it. He enjoyed jumping on and off the deck. He is saying so many new words lately such as "Andy" (his stuffed toy raggedy Andy doll that my good friends mom made him.....thanks Connie!) He loves dogs and every time he sees one he gets this high voice and even calls them "Andy" sometimes. He says "mama" and "dada" all the time and he even said "tongue" yesterday when someone stuck their tongue out. He is doing new things everyday and Jim and I are enjoying this period of his life. Ethan and Jim have been able to spend a lot of time together now that Jim is done with school and they both are eating it up! They love to chase each other around and having that "guy" relationship:) Another thing that Ethan is doing is bringing books to us all the time to read. He would read books all day long if he could! There are several times throughout the day that either Jim or I will read for 45 minutes straight and read the same book ten times over, but it makes Ethan so happy!! 
Ethan will read on his own if we are not around sometimes:) 
Ethan got some new "kicks" for playing outside!! 
Jim and I put together a 1500 piece puzzle and it took us an entire week! I know we are dorks!
I turned around the other day and saw that Ethan was following me up the stairs, monkey see monkey do. He even tries to close it behind him. Now we make sure the gate is "locked"
Here is our family.....for some reason the mom snowman and the baby snowman are the same size??? I built one and Jim built the other....apparently we had different ideas!
Ethan warming up to the snow and loving to watch the cars go by!
My masterpiece!
A look from our front porch on Saturday.
The waves were amazing!
If you look real close that black spot in the waves in a surfer...only in Marquette can you ski and surf on the same day!!:)
This is the homemade card that Ethan made for Aunt Kelly! Notice that fact that it is all crinkled up, he didn't want to give it up after he made it:)
We miss you and hope that you have a wonderful 28th birthday....can't wait to see you this summer!:) Enjoy your day!
Ethan and mom decorating Easter Eggs!
I was trying to get a picture of Ethan with his egg, but he just wanted to eat it......go figure!
Ethan's Easter Eggs!
Ethan digging into his Easter basket.
Here we are minutes before finding out where we are going:)
This is definitely an appropriate shirt for Ethan! He wore this to the pre-match party yesterday.
Just for you Aunt Keri....Miss you!
So mom has been trying to cut Ethan's hair, but it is just not working when you have a curious 9 months old watching your every move with the scissors. So I took him into the salon and they did a great job and so did he! I just fed him food the entire time and the best part is it only cost me $5 with tip :=)
As I sit here at the computer a lot is going through my mind. First of all our son is going to be 10 months here in a couple days and I just can't believe how time flies when you are having fun! We have LOVED being parents to such a great kid and I look forward to all the adventures that lie ahead with him. I also ponder what the next moth holds for our family. In just one week Jim finds out if he matched with a hospital for his orthopedic surgery residency and then three days after that on Thursday March 20th at noon, we find out where we match!!! It means so many things and it is weird to me how one little envelope and letter can mean so much. It is where we are going to live for the next five years, where we are going to buy our first home, where we are going to meet so many new people who may end being important people in our lives, where Jim is going to be trained as an orthopedic surgeon, there are just so many things to look forward to!! As soon as we know something, we will let everyone know the great news!!:)
Yesterday Jim and his buddy Toby took the kids out on a hike up Marquette Mountain and had a great time. Dad said that Ethan didn't make a peep for two hours, he just enjoyed looking around and getting some fresh air, even if it was cold!!
A wonderful view of Marquette.
I know what you are thinking....why is Ethan wearing a speedo in the middle of the winter?? Well the answer is that Ethan and mom are taking a swimming class together at the YMCA on Saturdays. I thought that it would be something fun for us to do together and he loves the water, or so I thought. After screaming for 10 minutes, he finally calmed down and started to enjoy the pool. At least he was not the only baby that was crying. I think that the pool was overwhelming at first and that next time will go much better (I hope)!!
Elise, Charlie, and Ethan having fun!
Charlie and Ethan sharing pretzels:)
Maren and Ethan playing together.
Ethan LOVES when he gets to see his grandparents! This weekend Grandma & Grandpa Jastifer visited and Ethan enjoyed playing and showing them all of his new tricks! In fact, mom and dad went out to dinner just the two of them while grandma and grandpa watched Ethan. Thanks for visiting grandma and grandpa!
Here I took the color out of the photo except for the the pumpkin and the hat.
You can fade out part of a picture so you can journal.
Here I turned a photo in a charcoal drawing.
